Mosquitoes. That's right, mosquitoes. As creepy little transmitters of diseases such as the current Zika virus epidemic (linked with causing the birth defect microencephaly), West Nile virus, malaria, chikungunya, and dengue fever, mosquitoes kill over 1 million people every year according to the World Health Organization.
This fascinating video from PBS shows how they suck your blood:
I am using insect repellent this summer after watching that video!
chikungunya
Image of mosquito from http://bloodinurineandpainofca.wordpress.com/
Until now I thought I had come up with enough reasons to dislike mosquitoes, those tiny little blood sucking vectors of disease. With reports of the debilitating mosquito-borne virus chikungunya in the Americas (Carribean), I was ecstatic hear that researchers are working hard to find ways to control mosquito populations. As mentioned in a previous blog, only the females bite to obtain nourishment for developing eggs. According to the study authors, the female mosquito can double her own body weight after just one meal,…
sa smith |
I think a lot of kids get the wrong impression about the medical field via TV. I mean like, I like 'House'. It is an entertaining TV show. But being an MD is absolutely nothing like that. Its not really a mystery novel. Its more like 'cataract surgery 5 times today... and 15 times this week... yaaay...' and 'pap smears and prescriptions for yeast infections and UTIs all day... yaaay...'
So when I had an opportunity as a 'pre-med' to do summer research, it blew mah mind!!!! Everything everyone was working on was like a little specialized mystery novel. It was both fun and frustrating,…